an hour later there was a more significant landfall than the fate of these finny trophies. few of the river craft kept their dates of arrival with certainty, and this was especially the case with the general packets. though the water was high, the operations of the confederates rendered the passage sometimes unsafe, sometimes impracticable. now and again the federal authorities pressed a boat into government service for a time and released it to its owners and its old traffic when the emergency was past. therefore on this dull night, when no sign or news was received of the calypso, overdue some ten hours, the wharf became deserted. hardly a light showed on the river banks or along the spread of the stream, save indistinct gleams in the misty gloom where the picket boats kept up a ceaseless vigilant patrol. the gunboats, with a vaguely saurian suggestion lay with their noses in the mud. here and there in allotted berths were the ordinary steamboats with their curiously flimsy aspect, as if constructed of white cardboard, silent, disgorged, asleep. the rafts, the coal-barges, the humble skiffs, and flatboats were all tied up for the night. the town had lapsed to[pg 210] silence and slumber as the hour waxed late. the great pale stream seemed as vacant as the great pale sky.
suddenly far down the river two lights, close together, high in the air, red and green, shimmering through the mist, struck the attention of a wanderer along the high bluffs near judge roscoe's house, even before a hoarse, remonstrant, outspreading sound, the clamor of the whistle three times repeated, hailing the landing, invaded the murky air. it was a spell to rouse all the precincts of the river bank. lights flickered here and there. hack drivers, who had given up the expectation of the boat's arrival at any hour that would admit of the transfer of the passengers to the hotel, heard the sound from afar, harnessed their teams in haste, and the carriages came rattling turbulently down the stony declivity to the wharf. baggage vans, empty and curiously noisy, recklessly jolted along, careening ill-poised and light without their wonted burdens. the omnibuses, with the glow of their dim little front windows to distinguish their approach, were soon on the scene; the driver of one was vociferating with a hackman, because of the lack of lighted carriage lamps, which had caused a collision and the wrenching away of the door and the cover of the step of the "bus," swaying open for want of a cautionary pull on the cord. loud and turbulent did this wrangle grow, and presently[pg 211] it was punctuated by blows. the crowd that the mere sound of a fight summons from invisibility was almost instantly swaying about the scene and hindering the efforts of the police, who found it necessary to interfere, and while both participants were arrested and hurried off to the station in the clutches of the law, they left their respective vehicles like white elephants in the hands of the remainder of the force, two of whom must needs mount the boxes to restrain the "cattle," as the hack driver mournfully called his beasts in commending them to police protection. the horses plunged and reared, terrified at the apparition of the calypso, now manœuvring and turning in the river, the paddles beating upon the water with a splashing impact as the side-wheels slowly revolved. the ripples were all aglow with the reflection of her red furnace fires, and her cabin lights sent long avenues of white evanescent radiance into the vague riparian glooms. the jangle of the pilot bells and the sound of the exhaust pipes came alternately on the air. and presently the great white structure was motionless, towering up into the gray uncertainties of the night, the black chimneys seeming to fairly touch the clouds, the lacelike guards filled with flitting figures all in wild commotion pressing toward the stairway.
albeit the discharge of the freight would not take place till morning, the scene was one of great confusion. in accordance with the regulation[pg 212] which the military occupation of the country required, the passengers rendered up their passes on deck to the officer who had boarded the vessel for the purpose of receiving them, permitting the travellers to depart one by one through a guarded gate, but it was impossible to identify them after they were once on the wharf. hence there was naught to distinguish from the other passengers a gentleman carrying a portmanteau, who entered an omnibus, save that the wharf lamps might have shown that he was handsome, taller than common, with a fine presence and gait, and clad in garments of unmistakably english cut and make. the night clerk of the hotel evidently saw nothing else unusual in the stranger as he stood under the gas-jet to register at the desk in the office, almost deserted at this hour—not even in the momentary hesitation when he had the pen in hand. he wrote "john wray, junior, manchester, england," had a room assigned to him, and passed on to the late supper, for which uncle ephraim's negligence had prepared him to do ample justice.
julius did not appear next morning at the usual breakfast hour. the terrors of the chinese gong, that was wont to rouse the laggards as it howled about the hotel under the belaborings of a stalwart waiter, failed to stimulate his activity or break his slumber. the fatigues and dangers julius had encountered had prostrated[pg 213] him. he was unconsciously recuperating, gathering strength for the rebound. he did not wake, indeed, till near noon. he turned once or twice luxuriously in the comfortably sheeted bed—at his home they had not dared to purloin linen from the household store to furnish his couch in the attic—and then, with his hands clasped under his head, he lay with a mind almost vacant of any conscious process, mechanically, quietly, taking in the details of the place. the sun sifted in at a crevice of the green shutters of the window that opened to the floor and gave upon a wide gallery without—now and again he heard at considerable intervals the passing of a footstep on this gallery. he noticed the wind stir and the flicker of the shadow of foliage on the blinds. the room was in the second story, and he knew that there were trees in a space at the rear of the old-fashioned little hotel. the furniture was of a highly varnished, cleanly, straw-colored aspect, of some cheap wood that refreshingly made no pretentions to be aught but what it was, for on the bureau drawers, the head and foot-boards of the bed, and on the rocking-chair was painted a gay little bouquet of flowers in natural but intense tints. a fresh chinese matting was on the floor, and muslin curtains hung from poles supported on pins that had a great brass rosette or boss at the extremity. the building enclosed a quadrangle, bounded by the river at the lower[pg 214] end. on each of the other three sides the wide galleries of the three-story brick edifice overlooked the grassy space. he had learned that the hotel had gone into the hands of a new proprietor, but even were it otherwise he hardly feared recognition, although he had been born and reared in the immediate vicinity. at his time of life a few years work great changes. the boy of nineteen was hardly to be identified in the man of twenty-two, with his mustached lips, his broadened shoulders, his three inches of added height, and the composure, confidence, and capability conferred by those years of activity and emergency and responsibility working at high pressure. some old resident might recognize the roscoe eye, but he knew he could trust the kindly associations of "auld lang syne" to avoid the sifting of a casual recollection. besides, this was hardly likely to befall, for the town was an ever shifting kaleidoscope of confused humanity. it was full of strangers,—federal officers, on service and unattached, on leave of absence, wounded, and their families; special correspondents; hospital nurses; emissaries of the sanitary commission; enterprising promoters of all manner of jobs, and the horde of nondescript non-combatants that hangs on the rear of every army, seeking the many methods of securing a windfall from the vast expenditures of money and goods necessary to maintain a great force on a war footing. he[pg 215] was hardly likely to meet any one who had ever known him, or even his father, in his stay at the hotel, which he must contrive by some method to make as short as practicable. then suddenly a great dismay fell upon him. he lifted his head and gasped as he looked about him for something that was gone! his treacherous memory!—in the prostration of his mental faculties by excitement and fatigue, in the lull of his long slumber, he had forgotten the alias he had registered as his own name on his entrance to the hotel. he thought of half a dozen of the most usual nomenclature, striving to goad his mind to a recognition of each in turn as the one he had selected. he was in desperation. true, he might have an opportunity to study the register and could recognize his own handwriting. but something—anything might occur in the interval in which it might be necessary to give the name he had assumed, and any incongruity with the registered alias would be fatal. every casual step along the hall on one side, or the gallery on the other, threw him into a sudden tremor as he prefigured a stoppage, a knock, an inquiry—"are you mr. alfred jones?—here's a note for you. messenger waits for an answer."
"and i don't know whether to answer as mr. jones or not!" he said to himself in a panic. he might turn away a note of warning from his father, who possibly had recognized his handwriting on the register, of greeting from leonora[pg 216] in whose face he had seen an appalled commiseration as he sped past her yesterday in his father's hall; or it might be that some confederate agent within the lines would hear of his plight and contrive this way to communicate with him. no matter how cautiously worded, his was not a correspondence at this juncture to decline to receive, and to turn lightly over to the investigating scrutiny of all the a. joneses to whom it might be presented. on the other hand he might "throw all the fat in the fire," should he meddle with the large correspondence of the jones family by opening sealed missives bearing their name, obviously not intended for him, if he had registered as abner smith.
julius was about to spring up, throw on his clothes, and rush to the register, when the name struck him with the force of conviction. john wray—that was it! manchester, england! the address had been selected to take advantage of the typically english clothes. he meditated upon it as he sat upright in bed. he had added the "junior," for the sake of verisimilitude. he smiled with satisfaction to have regained it. then—"i must have something to fix that in my memory," he said.
he looked fruitlessly about. he had no paper, save the map in the lining of his boot, no pencil, no pen and ink, naught for a memorandum. then with his gay youthful [pg 217]inconsequence—"constant repetition will settle it—mr. john wray—mr. john wray; mr. john wray. how do you do to-day?"
he threw himself back on his pillow, laughing at the unintentional rhyme.
"i'm a poet—if i did but know it!"
his irrepressible youthful mirth found its account in the most untoward trifles.
"there it is again!" he said to himself, "i have destroyed the sequence of my ideas. i am just as likely now to say, 'i am mr. poet'—or perhaps with the notion that i have got to butt out of this somehow—'i am mr. goat!'"
he laughed again, yawned lazily, stretched his arms upward, and fell back luxuriously on the bed, resting his tired muscles.
he lay staring at the design of the wall-paper, which was in scrolls of brown that, as they whorled over clear enamelled spaces of creamy white, enclosed an outline in fainter browns and yellow,—a scene of waves breaking on rocks and surmounted by a lighthouse; a far and foreign suggestion to this deeply inland nook, and refreshing, for there was more than vernal warmth in the air. and presently, still repeating—"mr. john wray, how do you do to-day?" he slipped off into a half-conscious doze from which he was roused only by a knock at the door.
